Peter Manderrs' Herefordshire Scene (From Hereford Times)

Peter Manderrs' Herefordshire Scene

9:00am Wednesday 24th June 2009 in

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PETER Manders came across this arresting view of St Catherine’s Church, Hoarwithy, on the opposite bank of the Wye when leaving Kings Caple along the lane that loops through Ruxton.

In his painting, the unseen river has carved its course through an undulating wooded and agricultural landscape. Aconbury Hill looms 276 metres high in the background. St Catherine’s, with her detached campanile, is a real treasure to discover.

The original chapel was built in 1840 by Rev Thomas Hutchinson. In 1870, Prebendary William Poole, Vicar of Hentland, “beautified” the property he referred to as “an ugly brick building with no pretensions to any style of architecture” in Southern Italian Romanesque and Byzantine styles.

White marble columns support a dome with a golden apse to the east displaying a mosaic Christ as ruler of the world. The pulpit and altar are also white marble, inlaid with green marble, tigers-eye, intense blue lapis and purplish red porphyry.

Coloured slabs and mosaics form the floors with a concession to the local area being given by the use of oak for the carved choir stalls depicting scenes from the life of St Dyfrig and local saints.